Thursday, 8 July 2010

At Work: Carving a Thor's Hammer Bone Pendant

After many many requests about how I carve the bone jewelry, I decided to show the process of making a Thor's Hammer here step by step. Keep in mind that this is NOT a real tutorial, since these steps display my personal way to reach my aim and may be totally improper for others.Though I am of course happy if you find it helpful for your own work.

Let's start!Of course there are some things needed before the actual carving work starts.First of all there was the design which you can see above. And a pile of "material" which you can see below.

on this picture you see my staff considering the most suitable piece for my work

I often get questions about the bones I use. Usually I simply buy bovine bones in the supermarket, frozen and filled with marrow. This is when my little helpers (see pic above) come into the play.During weeks of intense engagement they clean them very well and make them almost ready for the use. However, the sun and the weather are additional factors in the preparation process of the material.

The last step of preparation would be to choose a suitable piece of bone and to roughly cut it out.

Below you can see numbered pictures of the following working steps including the actually used attachments/accessories for my Dremel Power Tool. (click on them to make em bigger, you know?!)The numbers correspond with the steps of work. If there's no number on the single pictures, it means that they show the result of the previous procedure.Underneath you will find a short description of each particular step.

1. Transfering of the design onto the roughly cutted and grinded bone2. Engraving the outlines with a medium sized, round-headed, engraving cutter3. Cutting out the workpiece and beveling of some of the hard edges, using an engraving cutter with a cylindric head for both procedures

4. Using a big sized, round-headed, engraving cutter to deepen the section around the bottom knotwork5. Using a small sized, round-headed, engraving cutter to deepen all important lines6. Adjusting irregularities of the surface and the thickness of the workpiece

7. Using a small sized, round-headed, engraving cutter to deepen all important lines that may have vanished during the previous working step8. Shaping of all edges with an engraving cutter with a cylindric head9. Engraving the cuts on the lateral sections with a conic headed cutter10. Using big sized, round-headed, engraving cutter to make the dots in the background of the bottom section11. Using a small sized, round-headed, engraving cutter to deepen all important lines, add some new ones and "dotting" the lateral areas

12. Using different Diamond Wheel Point accessories for grinding down and smoothing